Chapter 39 - The Counter-Strike on Pier 14
The sky was beginning to turn a bruised, pre-dawn purple as our tactical convoy raced west along the river road toward the Cheatham industrial terminal.
Beside me in the rear of the armored SUV, David was checking the charging handles on two tactical rifles while Miller coordinated air support with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Coast Guard aviation units.
"We have visual confirmation," Miller announced, listening intently to his headset. "Coast Guard helicopter Bravo-Two reports a six-hundred-foot container vessel docked at Pier 14. Armed personnel are actively loading freight containers onto commercial rail cars. They’re running a dual-extraction: half the syndicate treasury goes out by river, half by rail."
"And Arthur?" I asked, my hands gripping my seat.
"Thermal imaging shows a high-value escort moving up the gangway right now," Miller replied grimly. "It matches your brother’s height and biometric profile. He’s alive, Sarah. And he’s armed."
"He’s desperate," David warned me, turning to look me in the eye. "Arthur knows that if he doesn't get that ship into international waters, he spends the rest of his life in ADX Florence. He won't surrender peacefully, Sarah. You have to be prepared for that."
"I am," I said, though my heart ached with the memory of the brother who used to build treehouses with me in our father’s backyard before greed rot his soul. "Arthur made his choice at the wedding table. He chose Charles Sterling over our bloodline. Now he pays the bill."
Ten minutes later, the convoy blew through the gates of Pier 14.
The terminal was a maze of towering rusted shipping containers, giant gantry cranes, and railway tracks cutting through the asphalt. Floodlights cast long, distorted shadows across the wet ground as our vehicles screeched to a halt, forming an armored barricade fifty yards from the ship's massive steel gangway.
Gunfire crackled immediately from the upper deck of the *Leviathan*.
Sterling’s private mercenary force, left behind to cover the ship’s departure, opened fire with heavy machine guns, chewing up the asphalt and pinning down Miller’s tactical team behind the armored engines of the SUVs.
"They're casting off the mooring lines!" David shouted, pointing toward the massive thick ropes snapping free from the bollards along the pier. The ship’s massive horn bellowed, sending shockwaves through the morning air as the propellers began to churn the dark waters of the river into white foam.
"If that ship clears the lock, we lose them!" Miller yelled over the deafening gunfire.
"Cover me!" David ordered, grabbing a tactical carbine and sprinting toward the base of the massive gantry crane overlooking the ship's bridge.
"David, no!" I screamed, but he was already moving like a ghost through the container maze, returning fire with lethal precision, dropping two armed guards as he climbed the metal ladder of the crane with impossible speed.
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I couldn't just sit in the armored car. I grabbed the master manifest, kicked my door open, and ran toward the terminal control tower—the only place that could override the automated river locks.
***
